


Patrick Rose.

by MoreHuman



Series: Decisions, Decisions [4]
Category: Schitt's Creek
Genre: Family Dynamics, Happiness is Complicated, Introspection, Light Angst, M/M, Post-Canon, Queer Feelings, families are complicated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 15:20:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26261029
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoreHuman/pseuds/MoreHuman
Summary: The Brewers send their son an anniversary card. Patrick has to tell them something.
Relationships: Clint Brewer & Patrick Brewer, Marcy Brewer & Patrick Brewer, Patrick Brewer/David Rose, mentions Patrick Brewer/Jake/David Rose
Series: Decisions, Decisions [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1541620
Comments: 109
Kudos: 376





	Patrick Rose.

**Author's Note:**

> I really thought I was done with this series, but then Patrick went and made another decision on me. Still I tried to give this plot bunny away and even succeeded! DoubleL27 wrote a great prompt fill for me, [By Any Other Name](https://archiveofourown.org/works/24381892/chapters/58808125), that I encourage everyone to read, and not just so you can see which bits I stole for inspiration.
> 
> As usual this is a thematic companion piece in this series and you don’t need to read them all to follow the story.
> 
> This is the part of my note where I planned to say that this is just a thought experiment and my headcanon is that they both keep their names after marriage but, uh… I think I managed to change my own mind about that while writing this. Whoops.

At what point does something you haven’t mentioned become a secret? Patrick thinks he catches it just in time.

“The anniversary card from your parents finally showed up,” David says, squinting down at the stack of mail he’s just brought into the kitchen. 

Patrick doesn’t look up from his eggs. “I’ll text my mom that she can call off the search party.”

“By this point she may have already escalated to taking her mailman hostage for a trade, so you might want to call a lawyer first. Huh,” David adds, and Patrick can feel what’s coming like a breath down the back of his neck. “She addressed it to Patrick Brewer and David Rose, do you think she—”

“I haven’t told them,” Patrick breaks in, a little too loudly, over the sound of his fork clattering onto his breakfast plate.

“Um.” For a moment, David just blinks in time with Patrick’s pounding heart, like he can hear it. Then his head travels a full circle around his neck. “What?”

“I haven’t told them about changing my name.”

“Patrick.”

“I know, I know.”

“It was _your idea_.”

“I know!”

“It was your idea _six months ago_.”

“Yes, and I haven’t seen them in those six months, so—”

David breathes one of those sighs that forces his bottom jaw from center- to left-alignment. “Oh my god, I’m having deja vu.”

Okay, that’s fair. “I just know it’s going to be a tough conversation, so I wanted to wait until—Where are you going?”

David steps back into the foyer and returns with the keys to Patrick’s car. He sets them on top of the pile of vendor checks Patrick just signed over breakfast. “I’m giving you the weekend off. Go see your parents. Don’t come back until you’ve told them."

Patrick wants to protest that it’s not that easy, but of course, he already knows it _is_ that easy. He’s done it before. The steps are familiar. He sees his parents, he tells them his news, they accept him, they love him, and they all go on with their lives as one happy family. The thousand rationalizations that kept him from picking up his keys every morning before this one evaporate in an instant. Now that David’s put them within arm’s reach, he can take them.

He doesn’t, not yet. Because his husband is standing over him, hand on hip, knowing he’s right. And Patrick will admit he’s right, but not without trying to make David squirm a little first.

“You know,” he says, winding his arms around David’s waist, pulling him closer, “I remember the last time I had trouble breaking something to my parents. I had this supportive boyfriend by my side who made everything okay.”

David’s smile says he knows what Patrick’s up to, and it won’t work. “Well, now you have a supportive husband, and this is his version of making everything okay.”

“Kicking me out of the house? This husband upgrade doesn’t feel like much of an upgrade.”

“Sorry, we don’t do refunds or exchanges.” David leans down, kisses him soundly, and presses the car keys into his chest. “Go fix your own problem.”

Patrick can’t deny it’s exactly the support he needs.

***

The drive to his parents’ house slips by in a blur of fall foliage, and Patrick practices what he’s going to say to them. They’ll know something’s up; he could already hear it in his mother’s voice when she promised to make his favorite stuffed meatloaf for dinner. Brewers don’t do surprise visits, and yes, calling with eight hours’ advance notice qualifies as a surprise.

 _Well_ , Patrick thinks. _I’m not a Brewer anymore._

Yeah, that’s probably not what he should lead with.

It seems safest to stick to the bare-bones facts. He didn’t change his name a year ago at the wedding because it honestly hadn’t occurred to him. There was too much else going on. Six months ago, he watched the letterers add _Family Owned and Operated_ to the Rose Apothecary window and thought, _My name should be up there_ , followed immediately by, _It already is._ It hadn’t really felt like something he was choosing. Making it official took some time, paperwork, and frankly more expense than necessary, but the Rose name was already attached to his proudest achievement. That made it his.

David didn’t really see the point, still doesn’t, but he doesn’t need to. Patrick didn’t do this for his husband. He did it for himself. Maybe telling his parents that part will help. 

Above all, he needs to make them understand that this has nothing to do with wanting to leave the Brewer name behind. This is about embracing who he is right now, who he wants to continue to be. He can do that without rejecting who he was. They’ll have to understand that.

If all else fails, he can make the joke about how he just wanted his name to form a complete sentence: Patrick Rose. 

Goddamn right he did.

***

“The meatloaf is delicious, Mom.” Patrick says. The smile he gets in return is nervous.

“Everything’s all right with David? With the store?”

“Marcy,” his dad warns, but the warning in his eyes is for Patrick. 

Time to get on with it. The cuckoo clock in the corner of the dining room, a family heirloom that’s been there as long as Patrick can remember, ticks away the seconds of quiet. He sets down his fork.

“David and the store are great,” he says. “I wanted to come visit because I have something to tell you. Nothing bad.”

“You can tell us anything, sweetheart. You know that.”

Patrick slides his eyes up to the gallery wall of family photos behind his mom, stealing one more moment for himself. The Brewers in those frames are all on vacation. They stay basically the same even as their backgrounds change. Small Patrick stands in front of his parents at Niagara Falls, at Crystal Beach, until he grows up tall (well, taller) and has to stand between them at Casa Loma, at the Hockey Hall of Fame. No matter what, it’s always the three of them, always smiling, smiling, smiling.

Not for the first time, he wonders how a sibling might have fit into these photos, how getting knocked to one side or the other of center might have changed things for him. He asked David once whether he thought sharing his parents with Alexis, splitting the weight between them, gave him more room to grow up as himself. 

“The weight of what?” David replied, not looking up from his magazine. “My parents never wanted anything from us.”

Patrick knows he’s lucky to have these people as his parents. They accept him. They love him. Deep breath. “Six months ago, I decided to take David’s name. I’m Patrick Rose now.”

“Oh.” His mother’s face goes slack for two ticks of the clock’s wooden pendulum. Then her smile screws into place. “Well isn’t that nice?”

“Yes,” his father agrees. “Congratulations.”

They’re surprised, and Patrick reminds himself that they didn’t expect this. When would they have expected this? When would it have even crossed their minds? Not on the day they signed his birth certificate. Not on the day Rachel came through the front door with a smile so brilliant, they were cheering before they even saw the ring. Certainly not on the day Patrick’s spouse walked down the aisle in a skirt, holding a bouquet of… No, no, that’s not fair. They wouldn’t judge David like that.

The Roses hadn’t been surprised. They were all pleased and slightly confused by the timing, but this development wasn’t beyond the realm of their imagining. 

“Yay, Patrick, yay!” Alexis cooed through FaceTime, radiant against the exposed brick backdrop of her New York apartment. “So David, how does it feel to be everyone’s fifth favorite Rose?”

“Snort mold, Alexis.”

“Oh my god, ew!”

When David’s parents arrived to celebrate his birthday in July, Patrick shook his father-in-law’s hand and said, “Good to see you, Mr. Rose.” 

“You too,” came the reply, alongside an exaggerated wink and a smile, “Mr. Rose.” 

But it’s easy to be a good sport from the winning side.

Patrick wants to give his parents the next word, to follow their lead, but they refuse to take it. It’s just the three of them, smiling and saying nothing. Like the next photograph waiting to go up on the wall.

“Don’t you want to know why?” Patrick asks when he can’t bear the wait anymore.

His dad reaches out to give his arm a reassuring squeeze. “You don’t have to explain yourself to us, son. We just want you to be happy.”

“That’s… That’s very nice,” Patrick says, because it is. He knows he should express gratitude for that statement, but for some reason he can’t muster it. 

His mother isn’t looking up from her plate. His father serves himself more peas. They’re trying for silence, but the clock won’t let them have it. They’re hurt, but they’re not going to say it. If someone’s going to say it, it’ll have to be Patrick, and he catches himself longing for the simplicity of his in-laws. Sure, locking yourself in a closet for a week is no one’s idea of a healthy coping mechanism, but at least David’s mother doesn’t make you guess how she’s feeling. A Rose never gives someone else the responsibility of digging for their own emotions. They always put them right on the surface.

“What if I want to explain myself?” Patrick asks.

His dad shoots him a look. “Have we done something to upset you?”

“No, but I feel like I’ve done something to upset you. Mom, you’re crying.”

“I’m not!” She gives a weak, watery laugh. “I just put too much horseradish in the stuffing.”

“You haven’t taken a bite of stuffing in a few minutes.”

“Patrick.” Another of his dad’s signature name-as-warning moves.

“What?”

“Why are you pushing this?”

“Because I want you to ask me why.” Patrick’s hands are shaking, when did that start? “I want you to want to know why I changed my name.”

“Okay then, why?” His dad sounds like he’s getting angry now. Patrick feels satisfied, then ashamed for feeling satisfied. “Why are you not a Brewer anymore?”

“Because I didn’t grow up to be the person you raised!”

Well. That’s a sentence Patrick didn’t realize was living inside him. He figures he has about three seconds to take it back. He lets them tick by.

“Patrick,” his mother says. She’s meeting his gaze now. “Of course you did. We love you just the way you are.”

“That’s not—” Patrick hums in the back of his throat, hoping that will bring the right words through. “I know you love me. But that doesn’t make me the person you raised.”

His dad shakes his head. “Sure it does.”

“You raised someone who was supposed to have one kind of life and I—I don’t—I have—” Patrick clamps his mouth shut, because he was just about to tell them about Jake. He can’t explain it. It’s petty and cruel, wanting to scandalize them like that. He tries again. “You raised someone who was supposed to be straight.”

His dad keeps shaking his head. “We raised you to be you. We love who you turned out to be.”

“But I didn’t ‘turn out to be’ gay, Dad!” Patrick knows he’s not being fair. He thinks about all the unlucky queer kids who would kill for parents like his, parents who love and accept him, and he’s making them feel bad for it. He knows he should stop pushing, but he can’t. “I’ve always been gay. That time when I was twelve and you joked that a pool party wasn’t a party unless girls were invited? I was gay then. Or Mom, when you taught me to make pie crust because it would impress my wife someday? I was gay then, too. Always. And you never knew! Neither of you ever had a clue!”

At first Patrick can’t read the glance that passes between his parents. There’s shock in it, but sadness, too, and some private, shared regret. A secret. A secret about him, growing up gay and no one having a clue. He doesn’t understand at all, until he understands enough.

“Oh.” He forces a breath into his lungs. “Okay. Um. I need to—not be here. I’m gonna—upstairs.”

The cuckoo chooses that moment to let them all know it’s eight o’clock, so Patrick doesn’t hear if his parents ask him to wait, doesn’t hear if the door to the stairs slams behind him, doesn’t hear when he starts to cry.

***

One of the shelves in the guest room, Patrick’s childhood bedroom, still holds all his old baseball trophies. Most of them are the plastic participation kind that everyone got, one per year from age seven through age eighteen. The large brass one in the corner commemorates the championship game when he made the final RBI off a lazy fastball. The framed photo in the back is from his high school yearbook, a posed shot of him at the plate under the title Best Sportsmanship. 

Patrick finds himself staring at the shelf as he lies on the bed, trying to get himself together. By the time his breathing slows, he’s done a full mental catalogue of everything up there. He remembers them all. Even though he can’t read it from here, he knows they all have the same name attached: Patrick Brewer.

After submitting the last of his name-change documents, the first thing he did was order four iron-on letters for the back of his Cafe Tropical uniform.

“Hey, Rose!” Ronnie called across the field at their first matchup of the season. “We don’t do names on jerseys in this league. Quit showing off!” 

Patrick shot back, “Who are we, the Yankees?” and got an honest-to-god chuckle.

It wasn’t about Patrick proving he belongs to David, though he’s sure it looked that way. It was about proving the Rose name belongs to him now, so it’s going to show up in the places where his name has always shown up. Like on the back of baseball uniforms, or on the signature line of the store’s vendor checks, or dangling from a lanyard at a tax seminar. Next to an Amazon review for his favorite red finger cots (“5 stars, they really help me flip the pages easier”). Six months is long enough for the new signature to flow freely from his hand, for his fingers to know the distance between the K and R keys by heart. Still, he hasn’t lost that little thrill he gets when he looks down at the name he’s written so easily and thinks, _That’s me._

Patrick gets up off the bed and slides the yearbook photo out from behind everything else. His own face, younger, rounder, the same serious concentration, the same sharp-edged eye black, stares back at him. _This is me, too._

“Hey kid,” he says out loud, “someday you’re gonna have a threesome with your husband.”

That, at least, makes him laugh.

Then he really thinks about it. He imagines telling his seventeen-year-old self what he almost spilled to his parents at dinner—that their son and the love of his life very occasionally enjoy inviting another man into their bed (or, more accurately, inviting themselves into Jake’s bed, because David is particular about their sheets at home). He could explain that his favorite part isn’t even the sex, exactly, but those moments when David has someone else’s mouth around him, someone else’s fingers inside him, and still reaches for his husband. Patrick watches for it every time, the instant between David looking down at Jake, his expression full of pleasure and excitement, and David looking up at Patrick, when everything else comes rushing in behind his eyes. It’s not the most loved Patrick’s ever felt, but it’s the closest he’s ever come to isolating the elements of this love between them. The confidence, the playfulness, the affection. The trust.

What would Best Sportsmanship Patrick Brewer, Rachel’s boyfriend Patrick Brewer, who’s already so sure he knows what love is, think of that? Would he be scandalized by it? Would he want it? Would he pack everything he owned into his car and drive off to go find it? Would he recognize himself?

There’s a knock at the door. Patrick swipes reflexively at his eyes, but they’ve been dry for a while now.

“Come in,” he says.

He’s expecting his mother, she’s usually the one who can’t bear to let the storm clouds linger, but it’s his dad. “Can I sit with you a minute?”

“Sure.”

They sit, Patrick on the bed, his dad in the desk chair next to the door. It’s the same desk Patrick used to sit at to study French verb tenses and ancient history. His parents really did the bare minimum of redecorating in here.

Patrick doesn’t give the silence a chance to grow awkward. “Dad, I’m sorry. I feel like I goaded you both into a fight and then ran away, that’s not—”

“Please don’t apologize,” his dad interrupts. “You were trying to tell us something important and we weren’t listening. And then what came out at the end there—I think we all needed a breather.”

“Yeah.” So they weren’t going to pretend that last, secret look hadn’t happened. Patrick isn’t sure he’s happy about that. “Okay.”

“Do you remember your friend Charlie? From grade four, I think?”

Patrick’s about to shake his head when someone flashes through his mind—a gangly First Nations kid with a long black ponytail and skinned knees. “Vaguely?”

That answer doesn’t seem to surprise his father. “He was only in your class for the first couple months of the school year, but you and Charlie hit it off really quickly. You were reading buddies and recess buddies and whatever else you could buddy up for, you did. Your mom and I would ask about your school day, and Charlie was all you’d ever talk about. Then when his family moved away you were… devastated.”

Patrick swallows, sensing where this is heading. “I don’t remember that.”

“You came home crying the day you found out. It took a week of you moping around for it to finally click that I recognized what I was looking at.”

“A crush.”

“I think so.” His father watches him carefully. “I was never sure.”

“I don’t remember,” Patrick says again. 

Something sharp digs into the palm of his hand. He’s still holding the framed photo of his younger self, gripping it too tightly. He’s so tired of sifting through his past and finding only stories like this one. Clues he missed so completely that they don’t even exist in his memory. It managed to save his parents’ offhanded comments about pool parties and pie crust forever, but not this. He’d be angry if there were anyone to be angry with.

“I realized it might be a crush,” his dad continues, “and I just thought, ‘Oh no.’ Not—Not because I thought being gay was wrong! But I knew it would be a hard road and I wanted things to be easy for you. That’s all we ever wanted for you.”

The wood is chipped in one corner of the frame. Patrick could fix it with some resin filler and black paint.

“And then you got over it. You had other friends, and you all started talking about your crushes on girls, and then you met Rachel, and... I guess it was easy to forget. To convince myself I was wrong about what I saw.”

Or he could buy a new frame, start over fresh.

“But that didn’t make things easy for you, I see that now. I don’t think I really understood that until tonight.” His dad takes a breath. “Patrick, I should’ve asked you. Back then. What you were feeling when Charlie moved. I’m so sorry.”

Patrick knows he should say something, but nothing comes to mind. He can’t say it’s okay, because it isn’t; he can’t say he wishes his life had taken a different turn, because he doesn’t. The truth is, he knows all about the allure of wanting things to be easy, of letting yourself forget, of convincing yourself you’re wrong about something you witnessed with your own eyes. He knows all about regretting something you wouldn’t change, because changing it would mean changing too much.

“You did the best you could, Dad.” Patrick stares down into his teenage face and tries to make it sound like enough. “Thank you for always doing the best you could.”

The mattress dips and his dad’s voice is closer now, his hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “We only ever wanted you to have a happy life, and we’re so glad that you do. But it’s hard sometimes, knowing you needed to find it in spite of us.”

Patrick wants to deny it, but he can’t. 

He sets the yearbook photo aside, on top of his old Blue Jays comforter folded up at the foot of the bed. He isn’t sure whether it lives there permanently or his parents only get it out when he’s the guest in his room. David made a big show of snuggling down into it the last time they were here, so irresistible that Patrick had to join him, to reach for him, to slide against him until they were gasping into each other’s mouths.

At one point Patrick whispered, “I can’t believe the first boy I’m fooling around with under these covers is my husband.” He’d meant it to sound silly and a little hot, but heard his voice shake with some nameless emotion—part gratitude, part resentment—that the laughter didn’t quite mask.

David must have heard it, too. He pulled Patrick closer with the blanket, then with his legs, his arms, his fingers, like he was trying to wrap himself around everything, all of it, all at once. Like every part of Patrick was worth holding onto.

“You want to know the real reason I think I changed my name?” Patrick looks up to find his father watching him again.

“Please.”

“The kid who fell asleep in this room every night, he never could have dreamed up the life I’ve got. Even if he had, I’m not sure he would’ve known enough to want it.”

The wallpaper in here is the same as it’s always been, a durable, textured blue made to last long enough to fade into the background. Patrick hasn’t noticed it in decades.

“Every time I get to do something that kid didn’t realize was an option, like ask out my business partner, or propose to my boyfriend, or take my husband’s name,” _or have a whiskey with Jake_ , Patrick adds to himself, “it feels a little bit more like _my_ life I’m living.”

There’s a peeling strip of wallpaper behind the mattress that Patrick used to tug at late at night when he couldn’t sleep.

“It’s a reminder that I haven’t missed it. I still get to grow into who I am. I still get to try new things and decide what I want to keep.”

He remembers the secret satisfaction of forcing the paper to separate from the wall, of undoing the glue bit by bit with the worrying of his hands. He wonders if the evidence survived till now.

“I’m not trying to erase Patrick Brewer. I’m proving to him what’s still possible.” Patrick exhales fully for maybe the first time since this morning. His chest feels deflated, light. “I don’t think I really understood that until tonight, either.”

His dad responds with a hug imported directly from childhood. Patrick relives it more than he feels it, the way it wraps around him and makes him safe, sheltered, small. There’s a murmured “We’re so proud of you,” and then they break apart.

“Well, I’d say we’ve earned some dessert.” His dad stands up. “Can I tempt you with butterscotch pie?”

“Um, in a minute?” Patrick pulls his phone from his pocket, blinking until the screen sharpens through the blurry threat of tears. “I told David I’d call him.”

“Of course,” his dad says, turning to leave before pausing in the doorway. “Your mother and I… We still want to help you grow into who you are, you know. If we can. We don’t want to miss it either.”

Patrick nods, once, gives a partial smile, then his dad is gone and he’s alone. He touches David’s name, first under his favorites, and puts the phone to his ear. 

While it rings, he looks around this room where so many things that once belonged to him have been kept the same. Letting his parents in on all the ways he’s changed, is changing, feels like an enormous task, but he wants to do it. He does. He doesn’t know how.

“Hi.” The call connects, and Patrick steeps himself in the voice that makes anything feel possible. “How’d it go?”

Patrick tells him. 

***

The next morning, Patrick closes the trunk of his car with one hand and texts David with the other.

 **Patrick:** _Headed home. Thanks again for making me do this.  
_**Patrick:** _Sorry your husband is so stubborn._

The three typing dots flash for just a second.

 **David:** _don’t you dare come home without your stubbornness  
_ **David:** 🖤

“What’s David saying?” his mom asks, bringing a travel mug of tea out to the driveway for him. 

Patrick doesn’t bother asking how she knew whose texts he was reading. He’s been told what his face does. “Oh you know, unconditional love and support, the usual.”

His dad joins them and they begin the goodbye ritual that starts with hugs, proceeds through thirty minutes of meandering conversation about what they’re all up to this week, how well the flowerbeds have been growing, whether or not Patrick’s car needs a wash, before culminating in repeated, more final hugs. 

“Thank you for coming to see us.” His mom holds Patrick’s face between her hands, then lets go. “And for surprising us. We can’t wait to see what you do next.”

 _No pressure,_ Patrick thinks, but what he says is, “I love you both.”

“I have to say, I like the sound of it.” His dad claps him on the shoulder. “Our son, Patrick Rose.”

Patrick sees his opportunity and takes it, grinning. “Goddamn right I did.”

His parents need a second to catch up, and then all three of them are laughing.

**Author's Note:**

> Super duper thanks to swat117 for beta-ing this for me, and especially for unblocking me when I was blocked. You're gr8.
> 
> Likerealpeopledo, sorry for probably making you cry on your birthday.


End file.
